Gigi Marino - MIT Technology Review http://www.technologyreview.com/stream/23101/?sort=recent
enOkonjo the Troublemakerhttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/513496/okonjo-the-troublemaker/
<p>Nigeria’s finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, MCP ’78, PhD ’81, isn’t afraid to clean house.</p><p><br />As she rings in the new year with her family in suburban Maryland, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s cell phone doesn’t stop buzzing. Nigeria’s top finance official is waiting for a call from former U.K. prime minister Gordon Brown, who has called her “a brilliant reformer,” and a visit from the International Monetary Fund’s assistant director of fiscal affairs, Menachem Katz, who worked with her in 2005 when she led the team that set out to clear Nigeria’s $30 billion debt. She’s just gotten word that her first book, <em>Reforming the Unreformable: Lessons from Nigeria</em>, has gone into its second printing, three months after MIT Press released it. In two days she will be back at work seeking to ferret out embezzlers, reduce government waste, and get the economy on track in her homeland, where the World Bank says more than one third of businesses considered bribing government officials commonplace in 2011.</p>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/513496/okonjo-the-troublemaker/Mission Controlhttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/410654/mission-control/
<p>When Pam Melroy, SM ‘84, commands the space shuttle, laughter is an essential part of the voyage.</p><p>Astronaut Pam Melroy, SM ‘84, had traveled to space twice before. But last October 23, she boarded the space ­shuttle <em>Discovery</em> in charge of a mission to transport what NASA calls a “high-tech hallway and Tinkertoy-like hub” to the International Space Station. On her watch, the crew would perform multiple space walks to deliver the hub; the crew would also move a giant truss element holding solar arrays to a new position on the space station and redeploy the arrays. The mission would enable the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to attach new laboratories to the space station, significantly expanding its size and research capacity. </p>Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/410654/mission-control/An Unexpected Directorhttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/409601/an-unexpected-director/
<p>The Media Lab’s wild child grows up … sort of.</p><p>When Allison Druin, SM ‘87, went on the academic job market in 1997, she interviewed at seven institutions for seven distinctly different positions. With a bachelor of fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, a master’s from the Media Lab, a doctorate in education from the University of New Mexico, and a burning interest in technology for children, she says, “I didn’t quite fit anywhere.” The University of Maryland education school thought otherwise and hired her as an assistant professor in 1998. </p>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/409601/an-unexpected-director/Geeking Out at Amazonhttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/408867/geeking-out-at-amazon/
<p>Jeff Wilke, SM ‘93, is genuinely passionate about the art–and science–of keeping customers happy.</p><p>Talk to Jeff Wilke, SM ‘93, for five minutes about his eight-year career at Amazon.com, and you will feel as if you have met Earth’s biggest talking billboard. “The beauty of our model is that we want to give our consumers whatever they want,” he might say. “When the technology changes, we also will give consumers what they want.” Ask if it surprises him that your last purchase from the Internet retailer was not a book, DVD, or CD but a solar-powered bird bath, and his response will be, “First, just let me say, ‘Thank you.’” This is a man who will tell you with a straight face that he sometimes wakes up in a cold sweat “worried about the customer experience we’re creating.” His demeanor does not shout “salesman,” though he may work a subtle pitch for Amazon Prime, which offers unlimited free shipping for $79 a year, into the conversation. He is a man who uses the first person plural when he talks about his work, his earnestness almost palpable when he insists, “We want to be, and think we are, among Earth’s most customer-centric companies.” It’s no stretch to imagine the mantra “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’ ” running like a news ticker around his frontal lobe.</p>Mon, 15 Oct 2007 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/408867/geeking-out-at-amazon/I'm Still Herehttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/407866/im-still-here/
<p>World-renowned architect I. M. Pei ‘40 officially retired from Pei Cobb Freed and Partners. But at age 90, he’s still designing buildings in Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East, following the sun and an inner light.</p><p>For the Chinese, 2007 is the year of the boar, the last in the cycle of the 12 animal years. For <br />I. M. Pei ‘40, 2007 is also a crowning and propitious year–the one in which he turns 90, cele­brates his 65th wedding anniversary, and witnesses the opening of the 60th building he played a major role in designing. Pei has been called “the mandarin of modernism,” “the world’s greatest architect,” and “modernism’s elder statesman,” but he is impressed neither with labels nor with the hallmarks of age. “I don’t really believe in ‘isms,’” he says. “And age is not everything.” </p>Mon, 07 May 2007 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/407866/im-still-here/Defending the Planethttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/406858/defending-the-planet/
<p>Rusty Schweickart ‘56, SM ‘63, has been to space and rescued Skylab. Now he’s on a mission to save Earth from asteroid destruction.</p><p>Some people are known as citizens of the world. Rusty Schweickart ‘56, SM ‘63, is a citizen of the cosmos. Born in Neptune (New Jersey), he piloted the first manned flight of the Apollo lunar module, rescued the Skylab program, and is now devoting his energies to saving Earth from asteroid impacts.</p>Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/406858/defending-the-planet/The Mad Hatter of Nehru Place Greenshttp://www.technologyreview.com/article/406476/the-mad-hatter-of-nehru-place-greens/
<p>Indian environmentalist Kamal Meattle, SM ‘67, takes his beliefs to work.</p><p>When doctors told Kamal Meattle, SM ‘67, that the air in New Delhi was killing him, he was not persuaded to leave his lifelong home. Pollution in Delhi is reported to contribute to the deaths of 10,000 people each year, but Meattle was determined that he would not become a statistic. He set out to create his own healthy climate–and prove his doctors wrong. Ten years later, Meattle runs an office hotel for dozens of clients, and its air is among the purest on the planet.</p>Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/article/406476/the-mad-hatter-of-nehru-place-greens/